April 28, 2010

The Chicago-based Society of Midland Authors has voted the book a Finalist in the Biography category for their 2009-2010 Awards Competition. According to their press release: "The Society, founded in 1915 by a group of authors including Hamlin Garland, Harriet Monroe and Vachel Lindsay, has given out annual awards since 1957. The juried competition is open to authors who live in, were born in, or have strong ties to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota or Wisconsin. Notable winners in past years have included Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mike Royko, Jane Smiley and Scott Turow."

Currently, the book is also a Finalist in the History category for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award. The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers selected from the magazine's readership. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor's Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America in New York City on May 26.

April 26, 2010

The arguments are so bitter, precisely because the consequences are so small. Check it out.

"Prof Figes's critical comments are not unusually vitriolic by historians' standards. The benchmark in pugilistic fervour against which others are often compared is the 1960s dispute between Oxford dons Hugh Trevor-Roper and Lawrence Stone over the arcane matter of whether the English Civil War was caused by a fall (the Trevor-Roper theory) or rise (the Stone hypothesis) in the power of the gentry. The dispute dragged in numerous other famous historians, including R.H. Tawney and Geoffrey Elton."

April 18, 2010

Interesting article about a woman who has collected historical newspapers; all with stories pertaining in some way to African-Americans and slavery.

Over the years, she says, she’s forgotten what she paid for many of the newspapers. She recalls one costing as little as $30, others so much more that she had to arrange to put them on layaway with the seller, often another collector.

“I’d pinch away a little bit from the bill-paying money and the grocery money,” said Mitchell, who lives with her two daughters, now 25 and 26, and her 4-year-old grandson. “There were times I didn’t go to the mall and buy a dress because I had some document on layaway.”

April 14, 2010

This past Tuesday night I had the pleasure of speaking to the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable on Union engineer Orlando M. Poe, who is the subject of my newest book. Poe played an extremely important role in the East Tennessee campaign during the fall of 1863 and especially the subsequent siege of Knoxville, as he was the man responsible for overseeing design and construction of most of the sixteen Union forts and batteries that ringed the city. Most notable was Fort Sanders, which was the target of the climactic and failed Confederate assault on the morning of November 29, 1863.

Prior to the talk, I was driven around and shown several of the town’s few remaining Civil War sites, including the well-preserved Fort Dickerson on the south side of the Tennessee River. We also drove past the spot where the famous northwest bastion of Fort Sanders once stood. It’s in the middle of total development and other than a few nearby historical markers and a UDC monument, you’d never know anything was once there, though the lay of the land still shows the high ground it was on and therefore, its importance to the Union defensive effort.

All of this, of course, got me thinking about important books that pertain to the East Tennessee Campaign of 1863. I couldn’t recall any detailed battle studies and considering all of the untapped sources that have been uncovered over the past twenty-five years or so, it’s evident that this campaign could really use a modern strategic and tactical study. I’d be amazed if such a project is not in fact already underway somewhere…. By far, the best book that has been published is now close to fifty years old, and that would be Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War in East Tennessee by Digby Gordon Seymour (1923 - ), who was a practicing anesthesiologist when the book was first published. The first edition was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1963 as an oversized 8 ½ x 11” hardcover (see image). Because of its size, it is a difficult find in collector’s condition. The book contains scores of historical photographs of the campaign’s major players as well as historical and early 1960’s Knoxville. Maps are not in short supply either, including one invaluable two-page spread that superimposes the locations of all of the Civil War forts, batteries, and lines over a modern (1963) street map of Knoxville. It’s important to note that East Tennessee was hardly a bastion of Confederate loyalty during the war. Unionism was quite strong, especially in the more rural area though the city of Knoxville itself proudly wore the gray. Seymour does a fine job of delving into the social aspects of this dynamic as well as the military movements of the competing armies.

The book has been reprinted a couple of times and a 3rd edition is currently available in hardcover or paperback from the East Tennessee Historical Society. Some feel this is a preferred edition as it features photographs and maps not in any previous edition, though I’ve also heard that the photograph quality is not as good as the first edition.

April 11, 2010

I will be speaking this coming Tuesday night, April 13, to the Knoxville (TN) Civil War Roundtable on Union officer and engineer Orlando M. Poe. Hopefully that afternoon I'll get to see a bit of what remains of Knoxville's Civil War heritage. Please stop by and say hello if you're in the area!